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Soups

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Soups

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Fill a pot with water and add the meat.

  2. Boil slowly in a covered kettle to extract meat juices.

  3. Skim the soup when it begins to boil; do not add salt until strained.

  4. Strain the soup and skim off all fat; save the fat for later use.

  5. Add vegetables like celery, tomatoes, parsley, onions, carrots, asparagus, and potatoes to the stock.

  6. For thickening, beat yolks of eggs with a spoonful of cold water.

  7. To thicken with flour, heat a spoonful of soup drippings, stir in a spoonful of flour, and add a large quantity of soup to avoid lumps.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Asparagus + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together217 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, celery, tomato, parsley, carrot, asparagus, potato):

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, celery, tomato, parsley, carrot, asparagus, potato. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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